Unwinding the Stepped Stone Structure, Part 2: The Legacy of Macalister and Duncan
This archaeological landmark and the area around it has been progressively uncovered since 1923. This series explores each excavation from the perspective of its own time.
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Today’s newsletter is the second in a series that aims to explore the uncovering of the so-called Stepped Stone Structure in real time. In the initial post, we looked at Macalister and Duncan’s 1923-1925 excavations, which were the first to reveal part of the monument. This article continues the story by looking at how the results of their excavation project were received in the scholarly world and the ways they reshaped the landscape of Jerusalem.
Publications and reactions
Macalister and Duncan published six preliminary reports during their excavation. They also wrote popular summaries in The Daily Telegraph, which was one of their sponsors, while the dig was still ongoing. Their final report was published in 1926, just one year after the project had finished. If archaeological publications were evaluated on speed alone, theirs would have received high marks.
When the international call to excavate the ancient core of Jerusalem was initially circulated, there was potential for good and perhaps even jaw-dropping results. After all, the Southeastern Hill had become accepted as the site of the fortress of Zion and King David’s palace. Before the excavation dust settled, Macalister and Duncan had claimed to unearth a number of finds connected with the Bible: a cult center where Abraham paid tithes upon meeting Melchizedek, the place where King David breached the city walls, the Millo (e.g. II Sam. 5:9), an obscure painting of the goddess Asherah, walls associated with the Jebusites, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Nehemiah, along with other finds. Some scholars responded positively to these claims. It seems that John Garstang, then the Director of the Mandatory Department of Antiquities, accepted Macalister and Duncan’s interpretations, at least those relating to the area of their “Jebusite Bastion.”
Others were less convinced. W. F. Albright wrote an influential review of Macalister and Duncan’s final report which appeared in the Jewish Quarterly Review in 1930. Albright took them to task for several issues but particularly for their erroneous dating of much pottery. His opinion did not go unnoticed. Albright’s book review was cited by other scholars who discussed Macalister and Duncan’s excavations into the 1940s and 1950s. Interestingly, the more credulous Garstang had written to Albright back in 1927 asking his opinion of Macalister and Duncan’s interpretations, specifically their dating of the Jebusite wall and Davidic tower. Albright replied that he disagreed.
Indeed, a detailed reading of Macalister and Duncan’s reports reveals many problems. Even if judged reasonably according to the expectations of their time, it seems clear that their work both in the field and in print could have been much more careful and detailed. For instance, Macalister wrote that:
"In excavating the site, the same method is being adopted as at Gezer: a large area having been marked out on the surface, and sub-divided into rectangular spaces, in each of them a gang was set to work. The area of the pit marked out was 60 feet square, and at first 90 labourers (men and boys) were employed, increased later to about 140." (Macalister 1924a:12)
Those who know the details of Macalister’s 1902-1909 excavation at Gezer, where he destroyed something like two thirds of the site (Davis 2004:32-36), may cringe reading this entry.
Some specific issues related to the excavation’s oversight emerge in the reports. Macalister writes about large stones, apparently a line of wall, that were stolen from Field No. 5 by the land owner to be used as building material before they had been properly observed or documented. This happened during the day when Macalister was “distracted by another matter” (1926:47). These stones had been important, because their context may have revealed something about the relationship between them and a nearby rock-cut moat. Considering the effort needed to remove and carry away building stones, we may reason that the duration of Macalister’s absence must have been significant.
Although it is apparently not mentioned anywhere in the reports, archival material reveals a very serious incident: a local Silwani woman named Hasanieh Bint Khalil Salameh died after falling from a temporary wooden bridge which was built where excavations had cut across the local footpath. She was apparently at least partially blind, and the excavations altered the shape of what had been familiar terrain. Her brother issued a claim against the Department of Antiquities and asked for payment of blood money to the family. Duncan, who was then alone in charge of the excavation, refused. While we must recognize the existing documentation paints an incomplete picture, it suggests there was negligence of some kind on the dig site, and, at least at times, that Macalister and Duncan did not oversee their excavation adequately.
Making a national monument
Macalister and Duncan’s excavation took place during the British Mandate of Palestine when Jerusalem’s landscape was being intentionally reimagined according to new principles. The notion of preservation was important to the British Mandatory Government, and it greatly impacted their policy toward Jerusalem’s historic basin (for example, in the decision to clear buildings from Jerusalem’s wall).
In harmony with this framework, the September 1922 publication of the international call to excavations indicated the possibility that remains could “be preserved as an historical feature of Jerusalem.” By the middle of 1924, when Macalister and Duncan’s excavation was still ongoing, British officials had already decided the fortification line that included the “Jebusite Bastion” and “Davidic Tower” should become a national monument. The excavators were ordered to leave these features unaltered, despite Macalister’s desire to remove the tower to see if a gate had been located behind it.
The area was prepared for public display in 1925. It seems this included leveling a terrace in front of the wall to give space for observers and preparing for the coming winter rains by filling existing holes with stones to allow for proper drainage. I have not found any indication that signage was posted, whatever interpretations it might have presented. British officials did refer to the large tower that had been uncovered as the “Tower of David,” suggesting at least that Macalister’s historical interpretation stuck to this part of the monument.
Conservation work to the fortification itself must have been undertaken at some point. In 1961, after Kathleen Kenyon’s first season of excavations in the area, she wrote that the exposed sections of the “Jebusite Bastion” had been set in cement by the Mandate authorities such that it interfered with her ability to understand the context of some of the remains (1961:79). It is unclear how the monument faired during the earthquake of 1927, although presumably it was unaffected. The cement could have been added either during repairs or simply as a part of the conservation efforts.
As far as I know, this represents the first attempt of a government entity to preserve archaeologically recovered remains embedded in Jerusalem’s landscape as an official monument. Other antiquities had been excavated and preserved, such as a Roman Period column in the Russian Compound, a set of rock-cut stairs on Mount Zion, or the so-called Tombs of the Kings north of the city. But these were largely in private areas and were not officially utilized by authorities. It seems the owners of Field No. 5 were compensated for the property, although the sale did not finalize for various reasons until late 1929.
Whose national monument was this exactly? It was obviously important to archaeologists, appealed to tourists, and fit well within the Mandatory Government’s bent toward preservation. How it would have been received by locals is anybody’s guess.
Impact on Jerusalem’s landscape
Daniel Pioske is a scholar who has written about the way ruined cities impacted the memory of ancient people. He argues that in some cases ruins served as a vehicle for the perpetuation of knowledge about their own past. Their presence on the landscape may have inspired stories about a city’s earlier life or its demise. This information was repeated and passed down to the biblical authors who wrote them down at a later time. One of Pioske’s more well-known examples is Philistine Gath, which was destroyed ca. 830 BCE (2 Ki. 12:17) and later occupied by Judahites. Yet centuries in the future, the Bible describes it as the former home of Goliath and a city that had belonged to the enemies of ancient Israel. The physical ruined city served as the inspiration for its own history.
We may flip Pioske’s template on its head and apply it to the modern landscape of Jerusalem. How might the display of once-covered ruins have affected the consciousness of people in the Mandate Period or impacted their understanding of the city’s history as they observed them? Macalister and Duncan’s Jebusite wall and Davidic tower have been visible since 1924 when these remains were first revealed. From that time on, these monuments, literally old but practically new, have permanently altered Jerusalem’s landscape. Their presence in the city has undoubtedly captured the imagination of tourists, scholars, and locals in transformative ways, serving as a vehicle for modern stories about Jerusalem’s ancient past. They also stood as a monument of British aspirations to transform Jerusalem through the principle of preservation. If nothing else, the visible presence of these ruins and their associated lore would prompt continued excavations and further adaption of the site for public viewing, which has continued in our own day.
Macalister and Duncan’s excavation and their interpretation of the finds naturally raised new questions to be taken up in the future. For instance, they had realized that the foundations of their so-called Tower of David continued much more deeply below ground. They uncovered only the top of structures in front of the tower but did not have the means to continue revealing what else might have been under the dirt. A vexing problem was created by the distance between the fortification line uncovered by Macalister and Duncan and the spring below. The location of the walls left the entrance to Jerusalem’s water system and the so-called Warren’s Shaft inexplicably unprotected during times of siege. These issues and others demanded further investigation, but the new national monument would lay dormant until almost four decades later, when Jerusalem found itself divided between Israel and Jordan.
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This was particular good, Chandler. I'm really looking forward to exploring the City of David with you in March.